Includes: The contests are the same as the regular issue however the cover is a one-of-a-kind made by an artist friend of Smartish Pace. The covers are made of everything from oil paint to collage. Watch the making of the covers. Trust us, you will love it; everyone gets a different cover!

Includes: The contests are the same as the regular issue however the cover is a one-of-a-kind made by an artist friend of Smartish Pace. The covers are made of everything from oil paint to collage. Watch the making of the covers. Trust us, you will love it; no two covers are the same!

The Guy You Work With

John Grey

What you want more than anything
is to grab the zebra in your jaws.
Forget job. Forget teamwork.
Roll the nature film.
You’ve seen your neighbor
in his flashy car.
You’ve heard the whispers
of bonuses for others
delivered behind locked doors
like secret Mason handshakes.
You just need five minutes or so
of stalking in the dry Savannah grass.
And then one good sniff of your prey
nibbling weeds by a small lagoon.
What better than a slow creep
up behind that unknowing striped back
as deliberate as sharpening a pencil.
And then the pounce,
the real law of the jungle,
you with your fangs around its rump,
it braying in agonizing terror.
What you want from life
is to trot back to your den in triumph,
zebra intestine flapping in your jaw
like spaghetti.
So they don’t pay you as much as the next guy.
You’re at the point now
that if they paid you in zebras
that would be enough.

John Grey is an Australian born poet, playwright and musician. His most recent book of poetry is The Bum on your Avenue (Phony Lid Publications, 1999). He earned the Rhysling Award for the best science fiction poetry of 1998. His poems have recently appeared in Whetstone, Bottomfish, South Carolina Review, Weber Studies and New Collage. (2000)